Large scale capital construction projects often require a massive analysis or model of a facility's piping network or infrastructure. For example, an oil refinery or processing plant can include hundreds of miles of pipes, joints, valves, or other types of piping structures. When a basic model of the facility's piping is first generated, there is requirement for modeling physical piping supports that hold the piping structures in place. However, as the project matures, engineers must handle the physical reality of physically supporting the piping infrastructure within the facility. Designers or engineers eventually incorporate piping support assemblies into their plant designs, possibly based on off-the-shelf available supports (e.g., springs, hangers, struts, etc.). Unfortunately, many plant construction projects often require custom or specialized piping supports assemblies that are outside the capabilities of known piping support assemblies. In such scenarios designers lack insight into if such a custom piping support assembly could actually be designed or manufactured.
Others have put forth effort toward modeling piping systems. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,517,428 to Williams titled “Optimizing a Piping System”, filed May 2, 1994, describes optimizing a piping system by minimizing the system's weight while ensuring the system falls within the bounds of design constraints. Williams provides some insight into piping system design, but fails to address the question if applicable piping support assemblies could even be designed to support the piping system.
Another example includes U.S. Pat. No. 7,624,002 to Berwanger “Apparatus and Method for Creating Scaled, Three-Dimensional Model Hydraulic System to Perform Calculations”, filed Sep. 7, 2004. Berwanger indicates that a hydraulic system comprising pipes and fittings can modeled, which can then be automatically verified. Berwanger also fails to appreciate that piping support assemblies should also be modeled or even designed to fit within the piping infrastructure.
Yet another example includes U.S. Pat. No. 7,917,339 to Bourgeois et al. titled “Heat Trace System Design”, filed Nov. 5, 2007. Although Bourgeois focuses on heat trace system design, Bourgeois also discusses modeling piping systems where piping system components (e.g., flanges, values, supports, and instruments) are determined based on extracted piping system data. However, Bourgeois assumes components are available and lacks any useful indications if a piping assembly support could in fact be designed let alone manufactured.
These and all other extrinsic materials discussed herein are incorporated by reference in their entirety. Where a definition or use of a term in an incorporated reference is inconsistent or contrary to the definition of that term provided herein, the definition of that term provided herein applies and the definition of that term in the reference does not apply.
Unless the context dictates the contrary, all ranges set forth herein should be interpreted as being inclusive of their endpoints, and open-ended ranges should be interpreted to include commercially practical values. Similarly, all lists of values should be considered as inclusive of intermediate values unless the context indicates the contrary.
Thus, there is still a need for piping analysis systems capable of determining if a piping support assembly can be designed or manufactured.